It is conventional to treat a flowing mixture of oil, water and foamy gas in an apparatus as described by Bull Patent No. 4,919,777 and while this apparatus has some of the elements of my invention it and other similar devices do not adequately address two specific problems which frequently occur in conventional devices but are not recognized and therefore remain unresolved, resulting in less than desirable performance relative to delivering pure products from the devise. The normal remedy to poor purification performance is to lower the flow rate through the devise and while this may improve the performance, this remedy will limit the amount of oil, water and gas that can be delivered to the pipelines and thus reduce income and profit.
The specific problems solved by this invention over and above the problems solved by conventional treaters are:
a) The problem of foamy gas bubbles skimming the surface of the oil which causes excessive oil carryover to the gas pipeline and further the foam bubbles will entrap water droplets that disengage from the gas in the clean oil area of the treater causing an increase in the amount of water carried over with the oil to the oil pipeline. PA1 b) And the problem of pent-up energy in the flowing water which if not contained will cause the water, upon impact against the end of the vessel, to splash into the oil layer similar to the way an ocean wave breaks against the shore. This pent-up energy problem is particularly prevalent in the longer cylindrical vessels where a lot of momentum is created by the water flowing, often at higher velocity than the oil, under the oil layer and being discharged through a relatively small outlet conduit controlled by a valve that opens and closes to control the water level. The splashing of the water into the oil layer unnaturally increases the amount of water being delivered with the oil to the oil pipeline.